THE CRYSTAL MAZE, C4, 8pm
YOU don’t often find common sense on Twitter, but the Crystal Maze hashtag has been producing a steady stream of reason over the past few weeks.
It has been telling the producers of the revived show to dump their daft celebrity specials and give us the ordinary, awkward contestants we enjoyed back in the good old days.
We don’t want to see has-beens from Hollyoaks, or X Factor rejects.
We want people called Ian and Sally and Trevor and Sarah: ordinary folk stuffed into a jumpsuit and made to panic over plastic crystals.
Thankfully we’re getting our wish. The annoying celeb specials have ended, and the grubby general public are being allowed back in. I wonder if Richard Ayoade will be similarly reluctant to touch them?
THE RONNIE BARKER COMEDY LECTURE, BBC1, 10.35pm
I ALWAYS thought of Ben Elton as an annoying, jumpy wee man, so it was a surprise when I learned, years ago, that he was behind the genius of Blackadder and The Young Ones.
It has become clear to me that I love Ben Elton’s work as long as it’s his early stuff and as long as he’s not in front of the camera.
So I was wary of this programme because it broke both of my Ben Elton rules: there he was, being current and being on screen.
David Jason introduces Elton as he gives this inaugural lecture in memory of Ronnie Barker.
It will be an annual lecture on the art, skill and joy of comedy and, in a nice touch, relatives of both of the Two Ronnies are in the audience.
Elton speaks on the topic of sitcoms and how crucial they are to popular culture, and he scatters it with funny anecdotes about the comedy stars he’s known at the BBC, particularly “the Rons”.
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